EA Wants To Re-Define What It Means To Be A Publisher

EA COO Peter Moore is no longer comfortable with publishers' role as intermediaries of video game production. Instead, he considers their peers to be Google and Amazon, not Activision, as EA use aggressive expansion in the social market and Origin to transition from being a facilitator and distributor of video game production to "internet-focused service organisation" of gaming experiences.
(Casual games, Dev, EA, Industry, Mobile, PC, Peter Moore)

Some of their prices are the same as stores, but they do have good deals on there. 33% off coupon for your birthday, and they gave away a free game download for pre-ordering BF3.

I hope as they update Origin(since it is still in "beta") they tweak their prices. Since they are cutting the middle man out then there should be no reason why their games shouldn't be $40 when games are $50 and $50 when they are $60. Only downside is that this may effect their business with retailers since more people would order through Origin.